Сердца трех / Hearts of Three

Besides, just because you tell me it’s your island is no proof.’

The swift rush he made to the shelter of the palm left his sentence unfinished. His arrival behind the trunk was simultaneous with the arrival of a bullet that thudded into the other side of it.

�Now, just for that!’ he called out, as he centered a bullet into the trunk of the other man’s palm.

The next few minutes they blazed away, or waited for calculated shots, and when Francis’ eighth and last had been fired, he was unpleasantly certain that he had counted only seven shots for the stranger.

�What gun are you using?’ he asked with cool politeness.

�Colt’s,’ came the answer.

Francis stepped boldly into the open, saying: �Then you’re all out. I counted ’em. Eight. Now we can talk.

The stranger stepped out, and Francis could not help admiring the fine figure of him, despite the fact that a dirty pair of canvas pants, a cotton undershirt, and a floppy sombrero constituted his garmenting. Further, it seemed he had previously known him, though it did not enter his mind that he was looking at a replica of himself.

�Talk!’ the stranger sneered, throwing down his pistol and drawing a knife.

�Gee! You’re sweet-natured and gentle animals in this neck of the woods,’ Francis retorted, his anger and disgust increasing. He drew his own hunting knife, brand new from the shop and shining. �Say, let’s wrestle, and cut out this ten-twenty-and-thirty knife stuff.’

�I want your ears,’ the stranger answered pleasantly, as he slowly advanced.

�Sure. First down, and the man who wins the fall gets the other fellow’s ears.’

�Agreed.’ The young man in the canvas trousers sheathed his knife.

�Too bad there isn’t a moving picture camera to film this,’ Francis girded, sheathing his own knife. �I’m sore as a boil. I feel like a heap bad Injun.[15 - Injun – уничижительное прозвище индейцев.